Left Foot, Right Foot

Michael Foot the former leader of the Labour Party has died at the age of 96. His political obituary appeared in the Socialist Standard of January 1990.

Many a premature obituary was provoked by Michael Foot's announcement that he will not be standing for Parliament again. There was no dissension from the opinion that he is a learned, courteous and sincere man. Another thing provoked by the news wouId be a massive flutter in the ambitious hearts of all who hope to become a Labour MP in the near future, for down in his Blaenau Gwent constituency Tories are like a threatened species and Foot sits on a majority of nearly 28,000. As the late Richard Crossman pointed out in his Backbench Diaries, the comfort of an unassailable majority works wonders for an MP's moraIe and has a perceptive influence on how the lucky Member views the topics and crises of the day. Whoever gets the Blaenau Gwent nomination will be one of the most comfortable and morale-full in the Commons.

But back to those obituaries, which said so many nice things about Foot, among them that he will be sadly missed in Westminister not just for his sincerity and courtesy but also because he is something called a "great parliamentaian". It is clear that "great parliamentarians" are pretty rare in all sorts of ways, for example a leftwinger like Foot can be one and so can a rightwinger like Enoch Powell. In fact between these two, who in theory should be sworn enemies until the end of time, there has long existed a state of mutual admiration. "He speaks beautiful English", said Powell of Foot. "The greatest master of clear exposition of British post-1945 politics", wrote Foot of Powell. Perhaps on the principle that it is not what you say that counts but how elegantly you say it, Great Parliamentarians stick together, offering the kind of speeches which bring MPs flocking from the tea-room and the bar. They know a lot about parliament's history and its arcane proeedural devices. They deeply respect its power to uphold the private property system on the basis of popular votes from the working class, The question is, whose advantage does this serve and what is its relevance in the case of the soon-to-be-ex-Member for Blaneau Gwent? 　

Accustomed pose

Except for those who are aware of how capitalist politics tames its rebels - in the case of the Labour Party, moving them smoothly from left to right - it is strange to recall the revulsion which Foot once provoked, in his own party as well as among its opponents. Only Aneurin Bevan was considered to be wilder and more threatening among the bogey-men who would nationalise everything in sight and so undermine the nations morals that not a single Knightsbridge nanny would be safe. Foot was among the most restless and damaging of the critics of the Attlee government after the war, a moving influence in the operations of the Tribune Group which was named after the gadfly journal of which he became editor in 1948.

From the time when he was first elected to parliament in 1945 until he became a Cabinet minister in the 1974 Labour government Foot could be relied on, whenever the Labour Party were under pressure to accept some inconvenient reality of capitalism, to strike his accustomed pose as the incorruptible guardian of Labour's virtue. He usually did this with some passion. which impressed those who agreed with him. At the 1959 Labour Conference, for example, when the party were being forced by their third successive defeat at a general election to consider how many of their supposedly eternal and cherished principles they should abandon if they were not to suffer yet another mauling at the polls. Foot came to the rostrum to defend nationafisation to, according to the Guardian, "a tremendous roar of applause". At their 1960 Conference, in the debate on nuclear disarmament when Gaitskell promised to fight and fight and fight again, Foot "was given a clapping, stamping, cheering ovation as he took the microphone". When the Labour whip was withdrawn from him, over the same issue of unilateralism, in 1961 it served only to reinforce the adoration in which he was held by Labour's tireless leftwingers. Here, they drooled, was a man who could always be trusted, a steadfast martyr in the defence of what they imagined were the principles of socialism. 　

In fact from the beginning Foot showed evidence that he was a lot more selective and flexible in his principles and his concern for working class interests. During his first spell as editor of Tribune (1948-52) the journal was critical of the Attlee government but as long as Bevan was a member of that government Tribune gave it general support. This stance caused it to support a number of obviously anti-working class measures, among them the NATO pact (the formal recognition of a nuclear-armed, European power bloc, dominated by American capitalism and aimed at Russian expansionism), the Berlin airlift (in response to an attempt by Russian capitalism to strengthen its position in Eastern Europe), and Britain joining the Korean War (a defence of the interests of western capitalism, in particular of America and Britain, against a threatened incursion by a developing capitalism in China). Anyone professing to be concerned with working class interests and with the international unity of the workers - especially anyone editing an influential journal like' Tribune - had no argument for taking the side of any of the capitalist powers. They should have pointed out the nature of the conflicts and their underlying cause. They should have urged workers everywhere, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, to stay out of the disputes of their ruling classes and instead work for world-wide working class solidarity for socialism. 　

Of course, Foot joined CND and was one of the few bigwigs to actually to complete the Easter march, as distinct from joining it briefly at a place chosen for its photo opportunity. His rebelliious stand against those bits of Labour policy which he found it inconvenient to support landed him in frequent trouble with the whips. According to Castle, in June 1966 he was complaining that the Wilson qovernment should have applied a "soak the rich" budget policy and that people like judges and doctors should have had a pay cut while the seamen (who were in dispute with the Labour government over their wages) had a good cause. In February 1968 he was willing to risk a defeat for the government ræher than support their proposed expenditure cuts which, among other things, abolished free milk in secondary schools. As a resuIt there was a general assumption that Foot would never be a member of any government, that he would never sell' his principles in exchange for office. 　

Minister of Unemployment

However in the 1970s it became apparent that Foot was not, after all, entirely lacking in ambition. He stood three times for the Deputy Leadership before, in 1974, he became a minister. By that time he was re-established as an MP, after inheriting the old seat at Ebbw Vaie of his hero Bevan. To bring Foot into the Cabinet was a typically Wilsonian masterstroke. After the three-day-week chaos of Heath's battle with the miners, who better to put in charge of the Department of Employment with the clear and simple brief of buying the miners' return to work? Wilson was trading on Foot's reputation with the grass-roots and, whether Foot was aware of it or not, the ruse worked.

Two years later Wilson's successor as Prime Minister, Callaghan, pulled yet another stroke when he made Foot leader of the House of Commons. At other times this would have seemed the unlikeliest of alliances; Foot had once called his new boss PC Callaghan and Callaghan had been in favour of Foot's expulsion from the party. Those were difficult days for the Labour government as they struggled to weather some typical economic storms and to hold down wages, without the security of a reliable majority. It then became clear that Foot was not only a "great parliamentarian" but also a master of Commons procedure and of bending the rules in order to push through unpopular legislation. One trick he used to get approval for some cuts in expenditure was to make them the subject of a vote on the adjournment, the idea being that a defeat would have been interpreted as a rejection of the adjournment and not of the cuts. In 1978 Foot traded an extension of homosexual law reform - a concept which should have been dear to his libertarian heart - for the votes of the Ulster Unionists.

The difficulties of that government were largely those of holding back the wage claims which came in a flood after the years of restraint under Heath. Labour's restraint had a different name; it was called a Pay Code and there were guidelines (that is, before the attempts at imposing the policy by law). The most active proponent of the government in its battles with the workers was Callaghan's Leader of the Commons, described by Castle as "more rigid than Jim Callaghan was in his Chancellor days". Obsessed with the need to keep in power a government which was industriously attacking working class living standards, Foot applied his ability to defuse and divert criticism. Castle recorded, whether in wonder or outrage is not clear, that at the 1975 Tribune rally Foot "even managed to make the pay policy sound like a socialist crusade". He did not manage to work the sane trick over unemployment, to make being out of work sound like a crusade; which was just as well because during his time as Secretary of State for Employment unemployment doubled.

The Voters' Judgement

When it came time for the voters to pass judgement on that Labour government it was clear that they did not have the same order of priorities as Foot. But was there really any need for the Labour Party to become so unhinged by their defeat as to elect Foot as their leader - as they hoped - for next Prime Minister? Was this what all those years of passionate rebellion had been for? Looked at in terms of the ugly game of capitalist politics this was arguably one of the most unwise decisions ever made, for whatever qualities Foot had they did not match up to what is considered necessary in a political leader. But Foot could not be accused of not trying; the aptitude for manoeuvring he showed in trying to keep his party In power was just as evident when he was trying to get them back in again. At the 1981 Labour Conference he assured cheering delegates that "nothing that I've seen persuades me that CND was wrong". But any hopes among Labour's unilateralists that at last they had a leader who would see to it that the British forces scrapped their nuclear weapons were soon dashed. Fifteen months later Foot was telling the Guardian (6 December 1982) that CND's policy of immediate unilateral nuclear disarmament was, if not wrong, then only something for a vague future: "We want to move towards a non-nuclear defence programrne".

At the 1981 Conference, in a typical splurge of rhetoric, he described himself as "a peacemonger, an inveterate incurable peacemonger" but by the outbreak of the Falklands War in the following April his peacemongering had been cured enough for him to swallow the specious Tory propaganda about the war being in resistance to brutal Argentinian aggression and their repression of the islanders, assuring Thatcher in the Commons:

"It is because I subscribe to that principle (sic) that I support the despaich of the task force".

The militancy of his peacemongering was also measured by the revelation from the odious Robin Day that Faot had approved the sinking of the Belgrano which, as it cost the lives of a few hundred Argentinian rather than British workers, was not classified in this country as an act of brutal aggression.

Foot's cymcal groping for power came to its peak in the 1983 election when he enjoyed himself stumping the country, making fiery speeches to packed halls but not meeting with the approval of the image-conscious pros of his party. His legendary scruffiness had always been tolerated, for example by Callaghan who thought "that it springs from his unspoken assumption that these are but the trappings and that a man should be judged by the sincerity and passion of his convictions". How then should we judge Foot's submission to the image-makers who strove to create a more acceptable, a more voter-friendly appearance for him, barbering his hair, dressing him in smart suits and even replacing his famous spectacles with their blinkers with a more telegenic pair? It was, politically speaking, not a pretty sight and of course did not win the votes because Labour's defeat at that election was their heaviest since 1931.

Squalid scene

And what of Foot since he relinquished the leadership for the more easeful life of a back-bencher with a solidly comforting majority? Has he been reborn as a fanatical lefty, a looming threat to the tea-rooms of Bournemouth and Tunbridge Wells? Since he was succeeded by Neil Kinnock (who in his younger days as a leftwing rebel was a protege of Foot's) the Labour Party has been trying, as much to Foot's dismay it had done in 1959 to look as much like the Tories as it can. Once again they are debasing what the membership are supposed to cherish as immutable principles without which there is no reason to be in politics. In 1983 the party at least professed to have a timescale, however loose, for running down British nuclear weapons; now there is no such thing. They have abandoned the policy of "squeezing the rich" through taxation and replaced it with vague discussion of "fair" taxation (as if it matters either way). To the trade unions they offer no commitment to scrap all the restrictive Tory legislation but float the idea of a "balanced package" which is another name for the Social Contract, Pay Code and all other such attempts to restrain pay claims. Whatever opposition to these changes there has been in the Labour Party it has not been warmed by any incendiary words from Foot. He has sat mute and compliant and when the time comes he will undoubtedly give the whole disreputable exercise his active support, in speeches which will convince the disappointed Labour supporters that anti-working class policies are steps towards the Promised Land when all people will be free and equal.

Michael Foot is not unique, for there have been many other Labour leaders who have first established their credentials as heroes of the grass-roots and then exploited their popularity to justify policies which were clearly opposed to what they claimed to stand for. This is part of the continuing process in which the working class are deceived that this social system, and its political parties, do not have to be as they are but could be better under a different government, under more humane leaders. This is among the most dangerous of illusions, for it conceals the urgency of abolishing capitalism, at once and entirely. Foot is soon to leave this squalid scene and he has no cause to be proud of his contribution to it.

IVAN

One Foot in the Grave

Needless to say when a "great" politician dies the media crow on about his greatness . Politicians , allies or antagonists , compete with tributes .Brown describes Foot as a "man of deep principle and passionate idealism". Thatcher said he was "a great parliamentarian and a man of high principles".

Blair said Mr Foot was "a giant of the Labour movement" and went on further to say "I will always remember his personal kindness to me.., he was immensely supportive and kind." Indeed , since it was a letter of support from Foot that assisted Blair being adopted as the Sedgefield constituency Labour candidate.

Michael Foot was a member of the 1974-79 Labour government which spent £1 billion on the new reconstruction of Polaris. During the Falklands War the real star of the Labour benches was Michael Foot. Belying his reputation as a doddering, ineffectual bungler, the Labour leader lashed the government for their "betrayal of those who looked to it for protection" (he was not talking about workers struggling to live on social security). "We should not", he raged, "see foul, brutal aggression successful in our world". (He was not attacking the record of past Labour governments on Korea, Malaysia, Biafra, Vietnam . . .) . Foot's speech was applauded by the MPs as a flag-waving, drum-banging demand for the war in which, of course, he would not personally be in the front line. It was only a few months previous that he won an affectionate ovation at a Labour Party gathering by describing himself as "an inveterate peacemonger". Many Tory MPs were delighted with Foot's performance. One sure way of winning their respect is to make a speech calling for workers to be sent off to war. The Labour Party has never flinched from the prospect of workers dying in the conflicts to protect their masters' interests.

THE RESERVE ARMY OF LABOUR! (poem)

THE RESERVE ARMY OF LABOUR!

Ed Miliband says that under Labour,

youngsters will lose their dole money

unless they undertake a training course.

Big Ed’s first pre-election spiel,

Attempts to float the boat;

Of Middle England to secure,

The mainstream public vote.

He’s keen to raise his profile as,

He’s down in every poll;

And so he’ll ape the Tories and,

Attack those on the dole,

He knows with his weak image that,

His chance could be kaput;

And that he might become an ass,

Just like poor Michael Foot! (1)

He wants each jobless tearaway,

To give up being pissed;

And train to be a Hairdresser,

Or Astrophysicist.

Or maybe a Philosopher,

With all their laid-back phlegm;

(But no more Politicians as,

We’ve an excess of them.)

The country needs Tattooists and,

Some extra Bishops too;

To help create additional wealth,

For Britain’s moneyed few.

With unemployment as its been,

All the redundant yobs;

Might still act quite revoltingly,

When they’ve still got no jobs! (2)

As training courses won’t remove,

The millions out of work;

And thus like all politicos,

Big Ed is just a berk!

(1) Michael Foot allegedly wore a Donkey

Jacket on Remembrance Sunday at  the

Cenotaph in 1981 and ruined his image.

(2) For the last forty years, UK unemployment

has never dropped below one million and many

well-qualified youngsters still can’t get work.

© Richard Layton

The Falklands and Patriotism

30 years ago Argentina invaded the Falkland/Malvinas Islands. The Socialist Party responded that “despite the wave of jingoistic hysteria in the press and its endorsement by Labour and Tory politicians alike, no working class interests in Britain, Argentina or the Falklands can be served by war”

At the time, we wrote:
"The hysteria and deception on both sides ensure that it will take a long time to purge the Falklands crisis of historical myth. It will be written up as an affair of honour; the Argentinians will describe it as a blow against foreign imperialism and the British as a defence of human rights. But the wars of capitalism have never protected human rights; in truth they have damaged those rights, at times destroyed them. Diplomacy—one of the practised arts of the capitalist system—cannot be an affair of honour; it must function by double-cross, concealment, treachery and lies. British and Argentinian servicemen went across the ocean to do battle with each other in their masters' cause. It was another doleful example of ignorant workers being easily duped by the empty jingoism of desperate politicians." Socialist Standard May 1982

Later, we wrote:
"This victory in a far away place was remarkable for its effect on the British political scene. Since the end of the war British armed forces had not enjoyed a string of unqualified successes; among their most stressful experiences was the Suez campaign in 1956, which was little short of humiliation for British interests in the Middle East. At home the 1970s were notable as a time of economic decline, with unemployment reaching three million. In this situation the effects of a British military victory reached far beyond the battle zone, encouraging workers to believe that although they were on the dole there was still something to be said for being able to call themselves British. In 1982 this particular delusion was called the “Falklands Factor”. According to Thatcher, “it is no exaggeration to say that the outcome of the Falklands War transformed the British political scene… but the so-called Falklands Factor was real enough. I could feel the impact of the victory wherever I went”. One of the places she went to was Cheltenham Racecourse, to address a Tory party rally, where she exulted that after the Falklands victory “…we rejoice that Britain has re-kindled that spirit which has fired her for generations past and which today has begun to burn as brightly as before”. To encourage the mood and flavour it with a bit of Battle of Britain memories, Vera Lynn was recruited to sing The White Cliffs of Dover at the victory parade."
Socialist Standard November 2006


For Thatcher it was crucial; if the British Task Force had failed to re-take the islands she would probably have gone down as well. After defeating “the enemy without” (the Argentine forces) she could then turn her attention to what she called “the enemy within” (the trade unions and particularly the National Union of Mineworkers.)

For the Labour Party opposition leader, Michael Foot, who has presented himself as “an incessant and inveterate peacemonger”, changed the course of the emergency debate in the Commons with a passionately belligerent speech demanding that there was “...a moral duty and political duty and every other kind of duty” to send in the task force to eject the Argentinian occupiers and who later, in the controversy over the torpedoing of the Argentinian cruiser Belgrano when it was sailing away from the battle zone, Foot was in favour of the attack, even if it did cost hundreds of lives. The murder of the mostly conscript crew of the Belgrano will no doubt be conveniently unmentioned in the patriotic reminiscences.

Such sentiments for liberty and human rights were never expressed for the 2000 Chagos Islanders who were "re-located" to make way for an American air-base on Diego Garcia and refused permission to return in defiance of the islanders repeated legal victories in the British courts. compare and contrast the forced removal of these British citizens (compensation of about £1,000 per person) with Britain’s resistance to the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands (also with a population of about 2,000) in 1982 at a cost of £2 billion pounds is poetic irony; an order-in-council agreed by the Queen in 2004 to ban the islanders from ever returning home for one population, and for the other, politicians promises of self-determination.


Our peace policy
The Socialist Party is unequivocally opposed to the world-wide capitalists system. We are opposed to it in Britain, Africa or in the South Atlantic. The rivalry over profits, trade routes, markets and raw materials which is generated by capitalism makes war inevitable. It follows from this that you cannot simply oppose war unless you are out to end capitalism. Sadly, all too many workers, who are sincere in their belief that war is an outrage, nevertheless unwittingly support capitalism's conflicts by simply voting for capitalist politicians at election time, by remaining within political parties which are out to defend the capitalist system in its various forms and guises. It is futile to try to remove an effect without removing its cause. Thus campaigning against war now, whilst not objecting to capitalism, simply means that you will be out again protesting when the next war breaks out. Workers have no country. Nationalism is based on the lie that workers have their own country; that the British have an obligation to Britain and likewise with the workers of Argentina. Workers who do not own or control Britain have no obligation to the bosses who do own and control it. Our sole interest is in co-operating with our fellow workers across the world who similarly have no country. Why should we die defending what is not ours and which we will never benefit from? On the contrary, our object is to obtain what is not now the possession of our class - the Earth and its resources. The only war that need concern us is the class war between the parasites who possess and the workers who produce.

What we advocate is a war on war to be waged on the battlefield of ideas—for the hearts and minds of the world's people. And once we unite there will be no force that will stop us taking the Earth into our common possession. There will be no socialism without socialists to bring it about, just as there will be no capitalism or war without workers to support such insanity.

CHRIS HEDGES REPORT: THE PERSECUTION OF JEREMY CORBYN

 According to Hedges', 'the purging of Corbyn and his supporters effectively emasculated the left within the Labour Party.'  Questions Hedges and Asa Winstanley fail to answer in their discussion include whether or not Corbyn is so different from others of Labour's left, past & presentt.  What of Michael Foot, honest John Smith, and the former darling of the Left and current Lord Neil Kinnock? James Callaghan was also of the Left and as Prime Minister presided over the winter of discontent.   And, more importantly, why given Labour's predictable and lamentable track record, would Corbyn have been any different?

JC would not have saved us. His pledges amounted to nothing more than another spin on the reformist misery-go-round. They included expanding jobs and a million new homes being built over five years. Yet when did a Labour government ever leave office with unemployment lower than when it started? After World War II (Labour has supported all wars since WWI - so much for the peaceful foreign policy pledge!) Bevan promised to solve the housing problem....Other pious pledges included 'security at work' (recall the use of troops as strike breakers against the dockworkers) and a secure NHS. Labour Minister Bevan felt more secure with his own private physician, and with the introduction of charges for dental and optical services he resigned. Tuition fees? That was Labour too. The odds on them being reversed were never good. The climate change pledge? That was more hot air. Free transport? No, nothing more than the possibility of an expanded publically-controlled bus network.

 Labour governments have carried out every anti-working-class action which the Conservatives have gone in for: they have supported wars; initiated the British atom bomb; sent in troops to smash strikes; established the vicious Special Patrol Group and set them on the picket lines at Grunwick; passed racist immigration laws; imposed “monetarist” expenditure cuts leading to the closure of hospitals and other vitally needed services. They have left power and, above all, the ownership and control of the means of wealth production and distribution in the hands of a parasitic capitalist minority. The record of Labour governments is one of total subservience to the needs of capital — of the rich and powerful and privileged — against the material interests of the class which produces, but does not possess.

We would be wise to heed what Debs said over a century ago. 'I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, someone else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands' (Speech in Detroit, 1906).

Tax Haven Heaven

Its in the news again and SOYMB reports it again . Those benefits cheats. SOYMB mean the real culprits - the tax evaders and illegal money launderers.

Sarah Petre-Mears is running one of the biggest business empires on earth. Or so it would appear. Official records show her controlling more than 1,200 companies across the Caribbean, the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand and the UK itself. Her business partner, Edward Petre-Mears, is listed as a director of at least a further 1,000 international firms. But the true headquarters of this major businesswoman remains mysterious. The UK companies register lists 12 addresses for her, several in London. None are real homes: several are PO boxes, collecting mail for hundreds of locations, while others merely house the offices of incorporation agencies. Only one listed address, a cottage on Sark, seems genuinely residential. Sark is a remote self-governing tax haven in the Channel Islands.

A characteristic "nominee director declaration", used reads like this: "I, Ian Taylor, Director BRAD LAND LTD, having agreed to the appointment as Director of a company duly incorporated under the laws of the British Virgin Islands [BVI] … hereby declare that I shall only act upon instruction from the beneficial owners." The nominee secretly hands back all control to that real owner. Typically, "To transact, manage and do all and every business matter … To open any bank account and to operate the same … To enter into all contracts … To collect debts, rents and other money due.  Nominees favour residence in self-ruling havens such as Vanuatu or Nevis because they aim to be beyond the reach of the developed world's tax and legal authorities. But they avoid the BVI itself. Because the BVI recognises British law, local residents could in theory be vulnerable to claims of legal liability from creditors and others. Finally, a signed, but undated, director's resignation letter enables a nominee to duck liability in the event of any trouble.

The British Virgin Islands (BVI) is a micro-state consists of little more than a few stretches of tropical beach, with a population about the same size as that of the Berkshire town of Windsor yet it is home to more than a million businesses. Secrecy is the BVI's stock-in-trade. The BVI government normally has no idea who actually owns the tax-free companies or what they do. The only significant information supplied to the official registry is the name of the company's agent – one of the local firms who arrange incorporations and collect the hefty annual fees. The agents will rigidly refuse to release further facts to anyone. There is only one narrow legal gateway through which it is sometimes possible to squeeze. If shown definite pre-existing evidence of criminal fraud, rather than tax-dodging, the BVI courts will sometimes order a local agent to disclose what it knows. Even such a rare courtroom victory can be illusory, however. The agents may even then only produce the names of sham nominee directors or shareholders, based in Nevis or Vanuatu or Dubai, where the British legal system is powerless. The agents may also claim they have no knowledge of the real buyer of the company, because they took all their instructions from a so-called "introducer" based in yet another country, such as Cyprus or Panama. The paperchase can often be costly and almost endless, giving suspects time to empty their accounts and cover their tracks.

Agencies who market BVI secrecy do so pitching their advertising with slogans like "I want to be invisible.",  "nominee officers and shareholders when confidentiality is a key issue", "The names of directors and shareholders do not appear on any public documents.", or "Maximum confidentiality and anonymity … Unlike many other jurisdictions, there are no disclosure requirements."

BVI, presided over by a British governor, Boyd McCleary and whose national anthem is ‘God Save the Queen’, collected $180m (£112m) from registration fees, more than 60% of total revenue. The BVI's Its current prosperity depends utterly on the money. Michael Foot, a former Bank of England official and Financial Services Authority managing director reported rejected transparency and e said the UK should merely "press for improvements" in disclosure by all overseas tax havens simultaneously, at unspecified future international discussions. This was a classic recipe for inaction.

 Sir Edward Clay, who crusaded against corruption in Kenya, gave his opinion to the Times in September about the BVI's secrecy jurisdiction: "The money held in such places comes from all over the world and probably doesn't bear examination– which is why it doesn't get much. But it conveniently looks after our payments deficit, and saves us the cost of running our small dependencies … The cost and damage inflicted on other countries by our louche [disreputable or sordid] regime at home and abroad makes us vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy and worse."

1913 - Tale of Two Struggles

 2013 marks the 100th anniversary of two memorable and important events in the labour movement's history, the New Zealand workers' first "general" strike and the Dublin Lock-out.

The Red Feds

 In the booming years just before the First World War, Wellington’s port was the busiest in the country. Sixteen hundred watersiders laboured to load export butter, wool, meat and flax by hand into heavy rope slings, which were then hoisted aboard ship by hydraulic crane. It was dirty and dangerous work, and accidents were not only frequent, they occurred in full view of the public, since the port, which has always been the city’s central feature, was open to anyone who wished to walk that way.

The New Zealand of 1913 was populated by a working class made up of several different layers. There were minority sections of radical union militants seeking a better life, through united direct action. There were layers of white collar workers, rural farm labourers and some blue collar workers supporting the government, and many uncommitted toilers in the middle. The working class was divided in other ways: most unionists were men; even by 1921 only around 2% of the female workforce belonged to unions. The 1913 dispute began over two incidents: Wellington shipwrights claiming a travel allowance, and union resistance to the sacking of miners in Huntly. Sympathy actions took place in other regions. In 1909 trade unionists had formed the New Zealand Federation of Labour (the "Red Feds") an organisation opposed to the Liberal government's Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. Employers soon developed a tactic to deal with the unions that ignored the arbitration system. They encouraged non-union employees to form a new ‘arbitrationist’ union and register it under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. This happened in the gold-mining town of Waihī and the result was a long and bitter strike, the only New Zealand strike where someone was killed. On 12 November 1912 strike-breakers attacked the union hall, and striker Fred Evans was beaten to death. They then rampaged around Waihī, forcing the other strikers and their families to leave town.

Uforia (1979) - (short story)

Uforia (1979)

A Short Story from the April 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

In Italy recently there was much craning of necks and straining of eye-balls when strange objects which many people believed to be flying saucers, were spotted in the sky. Photographs, and even a film, have been produced to substantiate this, and one Italian even appeared on television claiming to have spoken to creatures thirteen inches tall with lights in their foreheads. Since then the hysteria seems to have spread, with a report in the Guardian of UFOs buzzing an American missile base.

It would appear however, that despite all this aerial activity, flying-saucers, like ghosts, never actually make any serious attempt at communication, and one might wonder why these galactic interlopers go to all the bother of traversing space only to complete a couple of laps before zooming off again.

Perhaps the reason for their reticence in making contact is that they have been tuning into earth sci-fi movies in the mistaken belief that these were actual recordings of preceding missions. They would undoubtedly derive little consolation from a movie like The Day the Earth Stood Still in which poor Michael Rennie, while merely trying to warn earth governments of the folly of their ways, only got a bullet for his trouble (despite having a ten-foot tall tin pal who dispensed instant obliteration at the clunk-click of a visor).

Another reason might be the problem of choosing a landing site. Certainly ruled out would be the grounds of the White House, where one recent uninvited guest was assisted from the premises by a dozen club-wielding policemen. Another good place not to come down is Iran where any vehicle tends to end up as an instant bonfire. Nor Cambodia, where both sides in the set-to currently going on there aren’t exactly renowned for their kindness to prisoners. A worse fate for a space visitor would be hard to imagine—except perhaps to land with a green skin in among Rangers fans at a Celtic-Rangers match.

But more probable is the apparent complexity of the society that visitors would experience. Assuming that the spectators came from a planet whose society somehow evolved differently from that of the earth—Tribal Communism, Chattel-Slavery, Feudalism, Capitalism. The observation of the day to day running of the buying and selling system might be somewhat overwhelming. Perhaps to discreetly eavesdrop on one of these crafts might help to clear up the mystery.

“Our scanners show people blowing one another up, and shooting and clubbing each other to death”, 

“Is this all they do then?”. 

“Apparently not, in spite of the mayhem they appear to have developed quite a high level of technology.”

“So then, we can assume that everyone has ample food, clothing, and shelter?” 

“Now that’s an interesting point. Although the planet is capable of providing enough food to satisfy the needs of the entire population many times over, many millions are undernourished and even starving to death.”

“Perhaps they have inadequate methods of transportation?” 

“Well, here’s a transporter carrying milk and it appears to have arrived at its destination.”

“Are they giving it to the people?” 

“No they’re pouring it into a hole in the ground.”

“I see, a storage tank?” 

“No an abandoned mine-shaft. Now this looks hopeful, here are a group of people at a production unit stacking up sacks of grain in a huge pile.”

“Ah, then this time they must be storing it?” 

“Not exactly, they’re burning it.”

“Is here any logical explanation for this seemingly irrational behaviour?” 

“Well I’m not quite sure, but from what I can gather it’s some kind of weird religious sacrifice they dedicate to a deity they call profit. Apparently great numbers of these people go into production units and produce vast quantities of wealth taking only enough to keep themselves alive. On the other hand there is a small number of people who must be high priests judging by the amount of wealth that they own and consume, and by the way that the producers revere them, indulging in a curious ritual of inclining their bodies and pulling at strands of hair on the front of their heads.” 

“This is most difficult to understand. On our planet where we have long since mastered the technique of production, we simply distribute according to people’s needs.” 

“It would seem that although these people also have the wherewithal to organise themselves in the same way very few have grasped this simple proposition.” 

“Do you think we should land and inform them?” 

“Are you kidding? Look what happened to Michael Rennie.”

Tone.

The Royal Fairy Tales

Kings and queens exist because other people treat them as regal not because there is something intrinsic or magical about the royal person which makes them a monarch. It is the willingness of people to kneel before them and pay homage. In contemporary Britain, this willingness does not directly turn into political power, but a much more nebulous symbolic one. Through the imagery and supposed emotions directly fixed on the monarchy by "the people", British capitalism can present itself as being able to maintain a community of values. Something other than mere profit-seeking matters. Royalty underpins a whole system of social stratification and value.

With this royal wedding we are once more subjected to no end of absurd and expensive pageantry with the usual TV documentaries and magagzine features, all giving the line that our glorious monarchy is the centre of our “identity” and political stability. Such pageantry as we see today is no more than the creation of 19th century efforts to establish an imperial and domestic symbolic loyalty around a “regal” figurehead external to “politics”.

Does monarchy serve any interest for ordinary people, beyond giving a holiday and a pageant now and then? It may be said that if it does them no good, it does them no harm either. If it were true that to fill people’s heads with nonsense did no harm, that might be so; and most of it is nonsense. There is no reason for thinking that the Queen or Will and Kate are not pleasant, decent people. If things were otherwise, however, the truth is that they would still be presented as paragons. Some monarchs have been cruel, irresponsible and contemptible, but their subjects have still been asked for loyal reverence. It is not the monarch that is at fault in all this, but the social system which needs a shining symbol; where there is no monarch, something else has to be held up to dazzle the dispossessed. However, recently press voyeurism has undermined its previously cultivated image of a wholesome family example. The marriage infidelities of the heir to the throne and wife ( of the four categories of treason remaining from the Treason Act of 1351 there is still the offence of “violating” the wife of the monarchs eldest son, which may have caused some lost sleep among the men who consorted with Princess Diana while she was still married to the Prince of Wales.) Thus could the Yorks and Wessexes also seek to trade off the royal brand in their business dealings.

A monarch, in the popular mind, rules by divine sanction and in accordance with custom from the mists of time. The capitalists, on the other hand, have no ancient usage behind them, no special appointment from heaven. Unless they can disguise the fact of their dominance, they are clearly seen to rule by might alone – a perpetual challenge to might. A ruling class which has to confess that it rules because it possesses the means of life, already has one foot in the grave, for it holds shines a light on a class cleavage that all men may see. This is perhaps the real use of monarchs in capitalism. Behind the person of the Royal Personage, the capitalists can hide the fact that it is they in reality who rule. By parading the Royal Family before the workers at every possible opportunity, and with every circumstance of pomp and display that their ingenuity can invent, by investing them with divine right and something of divinity itself, the capitalists awaken and stimulate and nurture that spirit of reverence which is so deadly an enemy to the growth of revolutionary ideas, and so detract attention from themselves.

As it is to the interest of the capitalist class to represent that they, together with the working class, are subservient to a greater power, and to set the example of loyalty to their king, it becomes the imperative duty of socialists to strip the sham of all its disguising tinsel, and to expose the grim, sordid, unromantic, iron form of tyrant King Capital beneath it all. No royal power exists today . Everywhere the owners of the means of production have either bent the monarchy to their will or broken it. Power lies alone with the class of property-owners. They rule who own. The whole of this inglorious show, indeed, is subordinate to this object. It is not just only an effort to solidify and make more stable the monarchy, but to blind the workers to their true position, and make capitalist domination more secure.

“The royal wedding is a powerful and engaging fantasy,” says Diane Reay, professor of education at Cambridge university. It represents “the idea that anyone can become a princess – that, like Cinderella, we can all move up the social and economic ladder”.
Middleton’s parents met when working for British Airways – father Michael as a dispatcher and mother Carole as a flight attendant. Carole’s great-grandfather was a Durham miner, working in a pit owned by the Bowes-Lyons, the late Queen Mother’s family. His father worked in the pits, as did his father before him. In practice, of course, Kate Middleton is no Cinderella. Her father’s background is solidly middle-income (his father was a Royal Air Force pilot, from a family of Leeds solicitors and merchants). Party Pieces, the children’s entertainment business he and his wife founded, enriched the Middletons, enabling them to buy a rambling house in the affluent home county of Berkshire as well as a property in Chelsea, home to American bankers and the London base for faded gentry. Kate and her two siblings attended Marlborough, a top fee-paying school where Princess Eugenie of York, William’s cousin, was also a pupil. She went on to university at St Andrews in Scotland – best known for being the home of golf. The university’s reputation is stronger on social than academic selection; its principal boasted at Kate and William’s graduation ceremony that it was “the top matchmaking university in Britain”.
“Let’s face it,” says Prof Reay. “The prince would not be marrying a girl from a comprehensive state school.”

Socialists are unconcern as to whether we live in a republic or a constitutional monarchy – capitalism is capitalism whatever its political label. We must, however, point out the worst lies told about the history of our class. Constitutional monarchy has not always been a comfortable political framework for British capitalism and has always had its critics, including a minority of republicans. Socialists desire a good deal more than a mere capitalist republic. Unlike the Left of capitalism, we openly advocate common ownership and democratic control which, for the privileged royal parasites, would mean the end of their vast ownership of resources and their place as sources of political deference and patronage.

It is time we, the working class, rather than the royal nuptials of Will and Kate, celebrated something of far more importance - ourselves! It seems we have been convinced for so long that we should look up to our "betters" and to celebrate their shenanigans, brainwashed into thinking the same by the fawning media, that we have forgotten our own collective strength and our latent power to change the world.

Charity - A One-Sided Conversation

A society that genuinely cares for its citizens' well-being has little need for manufactured, top-down charity because such a society builds institutions that democratically enable all citizens to participate in a shared commons, where no one need suffer the indignity of gross injustice, burdensome debt or soul-destroying poverty.

 
One of the most potent, propagandistic memes advanced by the corporate well-to-do in the United States today has been the projection of themselves as lovers of philanthropy and charity on behalf of the needy and less fortunate. In the past, such exercises in ersatz empathy were carried out by Henry Ford, Dale Carnegie, Howard Hughes and the robber baron John D. Rockefeller, who was infamous for throwing dimes to poor people. Today, the banner of charity is paraded by the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates, the Koch brothers, Warren Buffet, Michael Bloomberg and George Soros - all of whom are heralded and praised by the media or opportunistic politicians for their apparent generosity of spirit.

The super-wealthy of the world can undoubtedly feel good about their big-heartedness. Some might even see the private accumulation of massive wealth as morally justified, even in the face of profound inequality - that is, justified so long as they can somehow claim that their great individual wealth will inevitably "trickle down" to the have-nots. Of course, very few economists today would have the temerity to defend trickle-down economics. This is why the latter idea has to be reconfigured in more positive terms. Instead of trickle-down economics, we now have the rich speaking openly about "corporate social responsibility" and broadcasting their beneficence through charitable foundations.

In reality, corporations see charity as the perfect means through which they can get their foot in the door of public institutions, universities and other public agencies. In other words, their largesse has a price tag attached to it. Corporate charity typically cashes out for the rich and powerful in the form of decision-making power. Donors are given a seat on boards, advisory committees or commissions where they can influence and restructure public institutions along business lines. The exemplary opportunists here are private "charitable" foundations set up by the Koch brothers. Their charitable contributions to universities, internships, think tanks and colleges are likely in the tens or hundreds of millions. In theory, this is money with "no strings attached." In practice, however, one cannot imagine a more potent delivery system than a university or other educational institutions for promoting ideas of unregulated, "free-market" capitalism or the "privatize everything" agenda of the Koch brothers. Aside from providing an indirect means through which to advocate or promote corporate interests regarding social, economic and political policy, in some cases, the Kochs, through their "charitable foundations," are able to directly control who gets hired for faculty positions.

What about Bill Gates? Well, from a Gates Foundation perspective there is charity and then there is a "smarter kind of charity." Thus, whether it is health care in third-world countries or education in the United States, the operative principle behind the Gates Foundation is the expression of compassion for the poor through making market forces "work better." Paradoxically, "smarter charity" turns private greed into a public good! As socially caring and responsible as the Gates approach may sound, it is a kind of "invisible-sleight-of-hand" that modern capitalists cheer on. In other words, this form of corporate charity becomes a kind of self-rewarding capitalist enterprise because it is able both to maximize profit through tax breaks, and subtly cement capitalist economic, social and political policies that reflect the interests of the super-rich - from monopolization to privatization of public goods and institutions. So, it turns out that much of the giving involved here is not giving for the sake of promoting the common welfare, but philanthropy for private profit and corporate self-interest at the expense of long-term public good.

To be sure, the Gates Foundation and other large-scale charitable foundations may not be involved in tax fraud or other illegitimate activities that have been associated with a great many charities. Moreover, there are many who might reasonably claim that some of these super-rich icons of philanthropy have genuinely altruistic motives for doing what they do. Perhaps some of them do. However, for the sake of elevating the discussion beyond mere name-calling, let me propose a more general way of distinguishing authentic from inauthentic charity by way of an analogy we can all readily grasp.

In a conversation, one way of keeping the person you're speaking to at a distance is to act as if you are listening to them and then refuse to really hear what they are saying. This might be carried through by believing you know in advance what they will say, by constantly interrupting them, by finishing their sentences for them, by talking over them or by assuming that you know better than they do what needs to be said next.

This attitude turns the reciprocity of conversation into a monologue controlled by one person - Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or Pat Buchanan may come to mind here.
To authentically acknowledge the other in a conversation is to be willing to allow that what they say may not conform or agree with your perspective or opinion. This kind of fundamental openness to what another person is saying is difficult to achieve. However, it is often practically and intellectually rewarding since it can introduce a new direction or possibility into the conversation - and perhaps alert participants to the insularity or narrow-mindedness of their own perspectives. In this sense, authentic conversations require a certain level of humility as well as a genuine desire to empower the other by listening closely and responding thoughtfully to what they say.

There is also an important sense of charity as empowering the other at the level of interpretation. This is exemplified in what are called "charitable readings," where charity is thought of as a mode of openness and affirmation of the other's argument or perspective - openness to the "otherness of the other" to put it philosophically - even when this otherness may confront or directly challenge one's own views or opinions. An authentically charitable reading is actually beneficial for all concerned since it ensures that any further critique tells against the best interpretation of arguments on both sides. By contrast, an inauthentic charitable reading would be desultory and in some cases patronizing. In such a situation, readers or listeners would take only perfunctory interest in what was said, or look for ways to deflect or absorb the arguments or opinion of another into their own "superior" view.

 In both these cases, what is important is that real conversation and authentically charitable readings are empowering because they are forms of recognition of the other person or opposing point of view as persons or perspectives worthy of respect. In order for such recognition to take place it is necessary that we not attempt to control outcomes, gain advantage or egotistically seek attention or praise. This notion of respect and recognition in conversation or interpretation can be constructively compared to inauthentic and authentic forms of charity. When charity is inauthentic it is because it is controlling and self-interested rather than concerned with the on-the-ground, long-term good of the other. Hence, in many cases, beneath a supposed generosity of spirit, there is an unarticulated desire by the mega-wealthy to unilaterally and paternalistically direct those who have been marginalized or underprivileged in such a way that the status quo world of structured disparities in wealth and income, or unjust applications of the rule of law, are never fundamentally challenged or questioned.

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The Falklands War - What we said

There was a ceremony recently in Port Stanley to celebrate victory 30 years ago in the Falklands War. This article is from the July1982 Socialist Standard saying what we thought of the war.


The war in the South Atlantic

Workers' blood has been spilt in a squalid war over which group of exploiters shall own and control the resources on and around the Falkland Islands. The perverse propaganda in favour of legalised murder oozes from rags like The Sun, while the genteel voices of BBC "defence experts" discuss details of human sacrifice with all the cynicism of ancient rulers plotting a battle between expendable slaves. In a society where the loss of a fighter plane is infinitely more costly than the waste of a replaceable uniformed wage slave, profit is the god and human needs must be tossed aside to satisfy its voracious appetite. "Our lads", who hitherto could not afford a weekend trip round the harbour on the luxurious QE2, are now being treated to a mystery tour on their bosses' floating mansion – the mystery being not where they are going, but whether they will return alive. At the bottom of the bitterly cold South Atlantic, corpses from both sides mingle with each other – death highlights the fact that a British worker is indistinguishable from an Argentine worker: they are not natural enemies, but paid dogs of war set on to each other to do their masters' dirty work.

Workers have no country. Britain is not "ours": the richest ten per cent of the British population own more of the accumulated wealth than the other ninety per cent added together. Britain, like Argentina, belongs to a minority class which owes its affluence and privilege to a system of institutionalised parasitism. The Falklands do not belong to the workers of Britain or Argentina or the Islanders themselves. If British capitalists maintain their ownership and control of the Falklands, or if they lose control to their rival exploiters in Argentina, it will not make a scrap of difference to workers anywhere. It is a war fought by workers for the interests of capitalists.

What are they fighting about?
Much fallacious drivel has come forth from politicians and media hacks alike about "the interests of the Islanders" and "principles of international law". It is suggested that Thatcher and her Tory, Labour, SDP and Liberal allies have sent the Task Force to the South Atlantic at a huge cost to the British capitalist class because they are eager to defend the Islanders' rights to be British and to save the world from fascism. Such nonsense would be laughable were it not so commonly believed. If the government was so eager to "keep the Islanders British", why did it exclude them from British citizenship in its recent Nationality Act? If the government was so disgusted by the Argentine junta's record of repressively anti-working class dictatorship, why was it a major arms supplier to the Junta up until the invasion of the Falklands? The hard fact is that wars are not fought for moral reasons – the only justice of significance to the capitalists as a class is that which ensures their own economic power. If British capital could succeed by selling out the nationalistic wishes of the Islanders and by working in alliance with the Argentine fascists they will certainly do so. Unlike in the Great War, however, the ruling class is no longer able to urge gullible wage slaves to die for the sake of Imperial Glory. These days the imperialist interests of the ruling class need to be dressed up as battles over principle – modern wars are disguised as "fights for democracy" or for "international law" or "for the right to be British". Just as Churchill and his political allies would readily have made a deal with Hitler in the 1930s (in fact, Chamberlain tried to and Stalin did), so Thatcher would willingly conspire with the Junta today.

Workers should not be deceived: wars are simply a continuation of the rivalries over markets, raw materials and trade routes which are inherent in the profit system. The economic interests at stake in and around the Falkland Islands can be summed up as follows:

1. Agriculture and fishers.
2. Oil.
3. The mineral resources of the Antarctic.
4. Strategic routes.

Agriculture and fisheries
The main industries of the Falkland Islands are sheep farming and fisheries. On 6 June 1982 The Mail on Sunday posed the question: "Who owns the Falklands Islands". The answer was revealing:

“For the most part, not the islanders. More than seventy per cent of the land is owned by companies registered in the UK. The best-known landlord is the Falkland Islands Company . . . now owned by the Coalite Group, the Derby-based manufacturers of smokeless fuel. The Company employs half of the island's population and owns half the sheep. It also owns some forty per cent of the land. Another thirty per cent is in the hands of seven small private companies in Britain and Germany.”

The article refers to some of the holdings on the Islands which are usually referred to as being "ours":

“Port Howard on West Falkland is a spread of 170,000 acres – bigger than Hampshire-stocked with 38,000 sheep. The farm is run by a manager for a company called James Lovegrove Waldron Ltd., whose thirty-seven shareholders live in England . . . The first territory to be recaptured by the Task Force was Port San Carlos where the Cameron Family have 97,000 acres and 31,000 sheep. Mr. William Cameron settled in the Falklands and bought the farm in the 1870s. He left it to his four children who later moved to Britain. Mrs. Anne Cameron, managing director of Port San Carlos Ltd., now lives in Ireland.”
Reading this one might ask, how many workers own farms covering thousands of acres of land? The repossession of the Islands is entirely a capitalist concern, of no interest at all to the majority of people who are lucky if they own or rent a back garden. Landowning parasites like Charrington Coalite and the Camerons must be laughing all the way to the bank as they observe propertyless wage slaves worrying about the possession of territories which will never belong to workers. We can be sure that the capitalists will not die fighting for our interests; why should workers sacrifice their lives for the sake of capital?

Oil
For some time there has been speculation about the potential oil reserves which lie beneath the South Atlantic in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands. Oil is currently a very valuable commodity and capitalists are particularly interested in new areas of exploration. According to the Observer (23 May 1982), two major oil consortia have made bids within the last year to explore the Magallanes Este, a stretch of water which is equidistant between the Falkland Islands and the Argentine coast. The Argentine government sold the bidding rights to explore for oil and gas in the Magallanes Este to the American oil company, Atlantic Richfield (ARCO). The British government threatened to take legal action against ARCO, as it claimed that the exploration was going to take place in its waters and that Argentina had no right to sell the exploration rights. In objecting to foreign exploration of the Magallanes field the British government was undoubtedly thinking of the objectives of the section of the capitalist class which it represents. The Argentine military conquest of the area will have been seen as a denial of the British capitalists' ambitions in relation to oil.

The oil factor has been played down by the British media. British capitalists are straining to give the impression that the potential oil is quite incidental to their high moral motives in sending the Task Force. The truth is rather different: in 1974 a team from Birmingham University investigated the oil potentiality in the Malvinas basin and compiled an economically optimistic report. According to the Observer,

“Industry forecasts of the potential oil in the Malvinas basin have been mixed, ranging from 20 million barrels from the Falklands side of the basin to between 40 and 200 billion barrels from the Argentine side.”

North Sea oil reserves produce about 50 billion barrels. In 1981 the Royal Dutch Shell Group, acting as a contractor for the Argentine State Oil Company (YPS) drilled a well in Argentine waters which yielded 5,000 barrels a day.

Quite possibly the oil prospects around the Falkland Islands will come to little or nothing; but they have yet to be seriously tested and the British capitalist class is determined to be around if and when the oil profits start pouring in.

The mineral resources of the Antarctic
Not long after the main discoveries of the Antarctic by Cook, Bouvez de Lozier and Kergeulen-Tremarec in the eighteenth century, commercial exploitation of the area began. It has always been assumed that the mineral potential would be vast; but only in recent years have techniques been developed for obtaining the resources of the Antarctic. (Similarly, the Russian ruling class has recently discovered the vast riches in Siberia and it is becoming one of the key industrial areas of the USSR.)

Competition between sections of the capitalist class for the right to own and control the Antarctic was so intense that research in the area has often been stifled and "poisoned by endless arguments over sovereignty" (The Antarctic, H. G. R. King, p. 250). In the mid-1950s the US government proposed that the Antarctic should be internationalised and placed under the control of the United Nations, but this idea came to nothing. In October 1959 a conference of sixteen nations met in Washington and devised the Antarctic treaty, which was ratified in 1961. The treaty determined a thirty-year period of multilateral control of the Antarctic by Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Russia, Britain and the USA. During this time geological research was to be carried out in the area in order to determine its potential riches. The treaty will expire in 1991 and there is every prospect that conflict over future ownership and control of the vast area will be very fierce. While British capital has a foothold on the Falklands it is close to the scene and cannot easily be excluded from a share-out of the Antarctic territory.

Strategic routes
Capitalism not only needs to produce commodities, but to distribute them to the markets of the world. To do so it needs access to the convenient trade routes. In an interview on NBC (a US television network) on 9 June. Margaret Thatcher was candid about the fact that economic considerations were on her mind:

“Mrs. Thatcher argued strongly that there was more to the Falklands crisis than ideological issues like democracy. Quite a number of big oil tankers now had to go round Cape Horn to get to Alaska, she said, and they (i.e. the Falklands) had very enormous strategic value” (Guardian, 10 June 1982).

In addition to the principal economic causes of the Falklands war there are political factors which come into play. In Argentina, the Junta was probably prompted to take military action when it did by the then growing political opposition. Faced with a crisis of world capitalism, the Junta has been unable to prevent intensifying economic contradictions from fuelling the discontent of large sections of the working class. Shortly before the ''reconquest of the Malvinas" the Junta was confronted by mass demonstrations on the street; its show of nationalist militarism has converted dissidence into jingoism, thus temporarily stabilising the position of the Argentine ruling class. The use of national chauvinism as a political diversion has aided Thatcher no less than Galtieri. In the long run, however, it is a mistake to assume that the leaders of capitalism are directing its affairs; they are the victims of the system and no amount of peaceful intentions on their part will avoid the occasional need of capitalism to destroy lives and wealth for the sake of profit.

The war, Marxists and the left wing
The role of revolutionary socialists is not simply to declare abstract principles. There are plenty of piously motivated people who are deeply committed to abstract aims, such as "world peace". Such aims are utopian unless they are related to the historical possibility of establishing a classless, stateless society. Understanding that capitalism causes wars, socialists urge the need for conscious political action to end capitalism and thus eradicate war. Socialists do not simply oppose violence or war or destruction; we oppose the class interests which give rise to these anti-social forms of behaviour.

Socialist principles are put to the test when they are applied to the real experiences of the class struggle. In 1914, when every political party in Britain was either swallowed up by the jingoistic war hysteria or else left muttering inane pacifist sentiments, the Socialist Party stood alone in condemning the war from a class angle:

“Whereas the capitalists of Europe have quarrelled over the questions of the control of trade routes and the world markets, and are endeavouring to exploit the political divisions and blind passions of the working class of their respective countries in order to induce the said workers to take up arms in what is solely their masters' quarrel. THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN, having no quarrel with the working class of any country, extends to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good will and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism.”

In 1939 the Socialist Party refused to be tricked into support for legalised killing, firmly rejecting the fallacy that the British ruling class – in its alliance with the dictator, Stalin – was fighting for democracy. Alone among all parties in Britain, the Socialist Party has never supported one capitalist interest against another in a war. Consistently we have argued that workers have a material interest in opposing all wars. In maintaining this principle the Socialist Party adheres to the classic declaration of Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto:

“The Communists are distinguished from the other working class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the fore the common interests of the entire proletariat independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.”

In the light of these revolutionary guidelines of Marx and Engels we may examine the attitude taken to the war by the parties, groups and sects of the British Left. In the moment of truth, have they sided with the workers' interest – have they pointed out "the common interests of the entire proletariat" – or have they supported the military ambitions of one section of capital against another? Predictably enough, the latter is the case.

Instead of pointing out that workers have no interest in the territorial squabbles of their rulers, virtually all the Leftists opted to make legalistic judgements about which band of exploiters ought to possess the Falklands. The New Communist Party's leaflet on the war begins by stating: "Let no one be deceived, Britain has no right to the Falklands."

It seems that the Central Committee of the New Communist Party has set itself up as an international arbiter of capitalist rights. Perhaps they will be good enough to tell us which capitalists do have the "right" to own. control and plunder the earth? The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) states that Galtieri's fascist junta is "manipulating the just sentiments of the people for the decolonisation of the Islands . . ."

Socialist Newsletter seems to be divided between supporting the claims of both groups of capitalists; its leaflet begins by stating that: "The 1,800 or so British people who live there are British. They have a right to stay there as British people."

Having granted the Islanders the right to stay allied to the British ruling class, Socialist Newsletter is anxious not to seem unfair to the Argentine capitalists and so states that "The Malvinas are part of Argentina".

The Socialist Workers' Party is never far behind when there are class issues to be confused. "Stop this mad war now!" its leaflet instructs; but instead of going on to say that only socialism can put an end to war, the SWP declares that what is needed is an Argentine victory. "Every socialist and trade unionist . . . has a direct interest in the defeat of the British forces." Now, if socialists have a direct interest in an Argentine victory (because that is what "defeat of the British forces" means) – if success for the junta equals success for socialists, as the SWP says, should workers not be encouraged to sign up and help the Argentine army defeat the British forces? Presumably the SWP is in favour of what they call the direct interest of socialists and trade unionists, and so are therefore logically committed to taking any action which will enhance such interests. Perhaps we will soon be seeing SWP paper sellers collecting coins to provide arms for the Argentine army – instead of their old slogan, "Fight the fascists on the streets" they will be able to shout out, "Fight with the fascists in the Malvinas" – for by doing so these political half-wits think that they are defending the interests of socialists and trade unionists everywhere.

The SWP leaflet states that:

“ . . . the Argentine trade unions and Left rightly believe that the Falklands should belong to Argentina as they were stolen by British gunboats 150 years ago.”
So, according to the petty nationalists of the SWP, workers in Argentina are quite right to believe that the national aspirations of their ruling class have anything to do with them-they are right to engage in the very anti-working class nationalism which Marxists totally oppose.

The other trad Trots, such as the IMG and the WRP, have taken attitudes to the war which are indistinguishable from the SWP. They have taken to referring to "the Malvinas" and to regarding Galtieri as a fighter against imperialism. While the Trotskyists dream of a future People's Malvinas, the Communist Party engages in sterile, meaningless talk about the need for a peaceful United Nations settlement. Such is the revolutionary status of the party which was once going to smash capitalism!

If the trad Trots are strong on pro-nationalist implications, the Revolutionary Communist Party is in the running to become the British wing of the Argentine junta. The RCP is quite clear about which capitalists have its support: "In this war it is the duty of British socialists to back Argentina." On the assumption that the enemy of an enemy must be a friend, the RCP states that "No socialist can remain neutral when the British ruling class goes to war".

In 1939 the RCP would no doubt have been sending fraternal telegrams to the Nazis. The front cover of the RCP's disgustingly anti-working class paper, The Next Step, has banner headlines declaring:

"WHEN BRITAIN GOES TO WAR WORKERS MUST TAKE SIDES!
THE MALVINAS ARE ARGENTINA'S!
DEFEND THE RIGHTS OF 27 MILLION ARGENTINES!"

If the RCP intends to defend the entire population of Argentina we must assume that they are just as concerned about looking after the interest of the capitalists' as the workers. The Next Step for any clear-headed member of the RCP would be resignation.

None of the leftist groups has attempted to analyse the real economic causes of the war. The SWP advance the facile« explanation that "the war is really about, saving face – Thatcher and her government's face".

Not only is this a classical example of. the conspiracy theory – the absurd belief that the capitalists are in any kind of conscious control over capitalism – but misses any serious Marxist analysis why wars occur. To blame wars on Thatcher is to ignore the class forces which personalities like Thatcher, Reagan, Brezhnev and Galtieri are simply the symbols.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) has traditionally ignored the vital question of the cause of war, preferring to campaign against certain weapons of war. The Falklands war has put CND in a difficult position: here we have a decent, old-fashioned conventional war of the kind that CND finds rather more humane than the unpleasant nuclear variety. The horrific conventional weapons which have been used in the South Atlantic may have forced some those CNDers who do not object to war as long as they are non-nuclear to have a re-think. Just as in the late 1960s thousands of CNDers lapsed from the faith in order to take sides in the Vietnam slaughter, so today there are many CNDers fully support the Task Force in its mission. CND boasts that its defence policy has been proved correct and had there been a run-down in conventional armaments the British ruling class would have been militarily unsuccessful in the South Atlantic. In short, just like all reformist bodies, the role of the CND is to advise the capitalists on how to run their competitive and murderous system.

One member of CND who must not be forgotten is Michael Foot – the man who likes to be known as an "inveterate peacemonger". His speech in the House of Commons at the beginning of the Falklands crisis should be remembered by workers for years to come. It was Foot who urged the government to use force - it was he who threatened to expose the government for weakness if it did not respond to aggression with the might of the British military machine. Foot has workers' blood on his hands no less than Thatcher. But Foot was elected to administer capitalism and who could expect his party or the Leftist sects which hang on to his party to do anything but bow to the needs of British capitalism? Peace for them is something to be talked about when there is not a capitalist war to be fought. The Left wing of capital is as much an enemy of the working class as are the overt defenders of capitalism on the Right.

The tragedy is that the dangerous policies outlined above lead inevitably to the waste of war and the continuation of class privilege. For Marxists there is but one way ahead and that will not be in the company of capitalists of any nation.

“The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!” (The Communist Manifesto).
STEVE COLEMAN
Socialist Standard,
July 1982

THE NEXT SYSTEM

A guest contribution from ex-member and close sympathiser of the Socialist Party

The Indignados of Spain

Quite often, social movements seem to suddenly mushroom into salience from pretty small and obscure beginnings. Their growth tends to follow an exponential, not arithmetical, trajectory. As with mushrooms, it needs only the right ambient conditions. Beyond a critical threshold, this growth begins to accelerate and impact upon the social environment that nourished it, resulting in a kind of positive feedback loop: success breeds success.

For those of us who have striven in our different ways to forge a better world out of the crisis-prone, conflict-ridden one we live in, this is a reason to hope and persevere. The future is not predetermined or set in tablets of stone. Chaos theory and the Butterfly Effect have put paid to all such talk. Complex systems like human societies or weather patterns are susceptible to small changes that can give rise to large consequences. Social inertia can be overcome and, along with it, what has been called the “normative power of facticity” - the tendency to vest our existing state of affairs with moral legitimacy for no other reason than that it exists. Change, as the saying goes, is the only constant in a changing world and today it is noticeably speeding up. The question is not how we can prevent it but how we can shape it to suit our own ends. That requires that we clarify what sort of end it is that we seek to bring about. Human action is fundamentally teleological and purposeful even the workings of the physical universe are not.

Consider the example of the anti-austerity “Indignados” movement in Spain which burst on the political scene in May 2011. In some ways this was a precursor of the more famous Occupy movement that began in the US later that year and subsequently spread to more than 80 countries, popularising the slogan “we are the 99%” and giving impetus to the “democratic awakening” then occurring in many parts of the world. Indeed, the Indignados movement was itself a potent expression of this awakening within Spain. Organisations such as Democracia Real YA and others more directly concerned with economic issues like Juventud Sin Futoro played a pivotal role in this movement. Its origins can be traced back to the global economic crisis of 2007-8 which impacted on Spain more severely than in most other European countries and fueled growing discontent with an endemic culture of political corruption and town hall scandals at a time of deepening austerity for many.

Back in 2011 when movement made its dramatic entry onto the political stage, I was living in the Andalusian city of Granada. Tucked within the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and spilling out across the surrounding plain, Granada is famous for its alluring attractions that draw in tourists by the coachload: the exquisite beauty of the Alhambra Palace, the quaint charm of the old Moorish Albayzin quarter and the lively bustle of the tapas bars.

Less well known, perhaps, is the fact that the city has traditionally been a bastion of political conservatism, a stronghold of the conservative Partido Popular. It was all the remarkable, then, that Granada should have been the location of a particularly robust manifestation of the indignados movement. Though not on the scale of Madrid’s or Barcelona’s protests, for a city with less than half a million inhabitants it was still impressive. A huge and colourful march snaked its way along Avenida de la Constitucion and Calle Gran Via de Colon, ending up at the Town Hall. There, on the plaza in front, a mini “tent city” was later set up, hosting daily public meetings at which people could voice their opinions.

On the one or two occasions I attended, I could sense an almost palpable undercurrent of anger rippling through the crowd. Much of this anger was directed at the usual suspects - like the banking fraternity. Since the property bubble burst in Spain in 2008 some 400,000 homes had been re-possessed by the banks. The anguish this occasioned was such that in a number of highly publicised cases from different parts of Spain, including Granada itself, the victims of these repossessions opted to take their own lives by plunging to their deaths from their high-rise apartments or suiciding in some other fashion. The popular fury this provoked was whipped up even more by the government’s perceived desire to rub salt in the wounds by delivering financial aid to the perpetrators in the form of bank bailouts. TV coverage of these events showed angry crowds converging on homes about to be re-possessed and such was the pressure of public opinion that, by 2012, even the Spanish Banking Association (AEB) felt compelled to sheepishly modify and soften its own eviction procedures (Reuters, “Spain promises to spare needy from eviction after suicides” Nov 12, 2012)

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